True worth

One of the ways to value a corporation is to add up the sum of its parts; ML has 3 parts

1 El Creston. Ownership is in dispute so we must value it at zero or very little. If the mine ever goes ahead it may require $800 million to $1 billion in capital, allowing for recent big global escalations in costs everywhere.

2 El Pilar This is shovel ready and with financing it could be mining in 15 months. Capital needed mighr be $350m allowing for recent escalations. Cash cost per pound would still be under $2 a pound. This mine is essentially a pure copper mine with annual production of 80 million pounds. This is a fabulous asset. In theory it could pour out $120m in cash flow per year at current copper prices.

The challenge is how to raise the money. It cannot be done by issuing 35 or 40 cent shares. You might need nearly 500 million shares to get 50% of required capital

3 Mineral Park. This is a long life asset in Arizona where 60% of USA copper is mined. It is troubled by low moly prices and in particular by operating glitches which result in very high costs. Can it recover and operate efficiently? That is the quesrtion

Outlook; Mineral Park should recover and El Pilar is such a great near term resource it is likely that Mercator will bottom out and recover. However the journey will be rocky.